Health Concerns Swirl Around Ottawa Senator Captain Brady Tkachuk

Tkachuk suffered a lower-body injury in the final round-robin game of the 4 Nations Face-Off against Sweden and did not return.

Call it the Dominik Hasek effect.

When a star Ottawa Senators player leaves town to play for his country in a meaningful, mid-season international event, a good portion of the fanbase is bound to be concerned about potential injuries. That’s Hasek’s Ottawa legacy after representing the Czech Republic at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. Hasek played less than 10 minutes of hockey before injuring his right adductor muscle.

He missed the rest of that NHL season in a year when the Senators had, arguably, the best team in their history. They lost in five games to the Buffalo Sabres. With all games decided by one goal, a healthy Hasek probably would have made a difference against his old team.

Since then, the Sens have had other players step away for these mid-season events like Olympic appearances – guys like Filip Kuba and Milan Michalek – but no one as important as Hasek has done so until now.

The Senators sent a pair of star players to the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament, which has been far more fierce and competitive (and awesome) than anyone imagined. Captain Brady Tkachuk and goalie Linus Ullmark both signed up to represent their countries.

In the final game of the round robin on Monday, Tkachuk suffered what Team USA coach Mike Sullivan described as a lower-body injury. Although it seemed like a harmless-looking play, it’s believed that Tkachuk was hurt when he lost an edge and slid into the pad of Sweden goalie Samuel Ersson on Monday night.

Sullivan thinks Tkachuk should be good to go for Thursday's final but was waiting on more info.

“We held him out more for precautionary reasons at that point,” Sullivan said. “And I haven’t got an update to this point after the game yet. So we’ll see how he responds, but I don’t anticipate it being an issue.”

Even if Tkachuk is able to play in the final two days from now, it sounds like there's a chance he’ll be playing through something. Everyone respects a player willing to do that, but Sens fans also didn’t sign up for their captain playing hurt in this tournament. That carries an entirely different level of risk.

That’s the very reason why, leading up to the tournament, the wisdom of Ullmark's participation was second-guessed in some circles. He had played only two NHL games after missing a month and a half with a back injury.

So when Ullmark had to bail out of his scheduled start against Sweden on Monday, there was briefly some concern about Hasek 2.0.

But the reason for Ullmark’s absence was announced as an illness, which also took Filip Gustavsson out in the middle of Game Two, forcing Ullmark into action. Ullmark's tournament is now over, so he has four more days to rest up before the Montreal Canadiens visit Ottawa on Saturday night. As far as he goes, there are certainly no short-term health concerns.

That being said, Ullmark’s first season in Ottawa has been filled with health issues. As the 31-year-old prepares to begin a four-year contract worth $8.25 million this fall, Sens fans hope that this season will be remembered as an outlier, not a harbinger.

This article is from The Hockey News-Ottawa. For more great Ottawa Senators coverage, check out THN.com/Ottawa or leave a comment below at Senators Roundtable.

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